A former Tinder executive has launched Rivet, a dating app that lets strangers vote on whether two users would make a good couple.
Rivet, founded by Taru Kapoor, opened nationwide across the United States on Sept. 24, 2026. The app uses what the company calls Social Matching. Potential pairs are first generated from users’ stated preferences, interests, relationship intentions and other profile details. Matchmakers—other users, invited friends or higher-performing participants known as Elite Matchers—then review anonymized information about the two people’s personalities and goals, along with an AI-generated image of the pair together, before casting a yes or no vote.
Votes contribute to a Social Matching score shown to the daters as a percentage. High-scoring pairs receive an introduction. Each person then independently reviews the full profile and decides whether to match and start a conversation. Voting remains anonymous to the daters.
“Dating has always been social,” Kapoor said in a statement released with the launch. “I spent many years thinking what we were building was removing friction from meeting people. Instead, we removed the people. Online dating apps created millions of connections in the last decade, mostly because they expanded the pool… A huge side effect of that was that they turned something as fundamentally social and human as dating into a lonely, overwhelming activity which felt transactional and isolating.”
She added that Rivet rests on the idea that “humans understand chemistry and compatibility in a way that no algorithm can. You don’t have to find your person entirely on your own, let people help you find your person.”
Kapoor spent nearly a decade at Tinder and Match Group. She joined in 2015 as general manager to launch the app in India and later expanded her role across South Asia, Southeast Asia and Turkey before leaving in 2023. She founded Rivet in 2025 with Rajat Sahni, who previously led the used-car business at CarDekho. The company, operating as MeantToBe Inc. and based in New York, tested the product earlier in markets including Charlotte, where it drew thousands of users.
Anyone can join solely as a Matcher, including people who are married, in relationships or not looking to date. Matchers earn in-app Karma for voting and for successful pairings. The currency can unlock premium features or, for those who meet eligibility thresholds, be redeemed for cash or gift cards. A Matcher Quotient score tracks thoughtfulness and alignment with eventual dater decisions.
Rivet raised $10.5 million in seed funding from Peak XV Partners, Shine Capital and Blume Ventures. Former Tinder and OkCupid CEO Elie Seidman is an early investor and advised Kapoor during development.
“The swipe was one of the defining product innovations in online dating because it changed the fundamental way people discovered each other,” Seidman said. “For the first time since the swipe, the category has something genuinely new: human judgment and a real social community built on the foundation of state-of-the-art technology, working at scale.”
The app is free to download on iOS and Android. Some features, such as messaging before a community-backed match, require Karma or a payment. Algorithms and AI handle user representation, candidate retrieval, ranking of potential pairs and image generation, while the core compatibility judgment stays with people. The stated goal is fewer, higher-quality introductions instead of endless swiping.
A company-commissioned survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults found that 68 percent of Gen Z and Millennial respondents said they would be interested in anonymously helping someone they do not know find a potential match if the other person retained the final decision.
More information is available at rivetdating.com.
